SHRDLU was primarily a language parser that allowed user interaction using English terms. The user instructed SHRDLU to move various objects around in the "blocks world" containing various basic objects: blocks, cones, balls, etc. What made SHRDLU unique was the combination of four simple ideas that added up to make the simulation of "understanding" far more convincing. One was that SHRDLU's world was so simple that the entire set of objects and locations could be described by including as few as perhaps 50 words: nouns like "block" and "cone", verbs like "place on" and "move to", and adjectives like "big" and "blue". The possible combinations of these basic language building blocks were quite simple, and the program was fairly adept at figuring out what the user meant. SHRDLU also included a basic memory to supply context. One could ask SHRDLU to "put the green cone on the red block" and then "take the cone off"; "the cone" would be taken to mean the green cone one had just talked about. SHRDLU could search back further through the interactions to find the proper context in most cases when additional adjectives were supplied. One could also ask questions about the history, for instance one could ask "did you pick up anything before the cone?" A side effect of this memory, and the original rules SHRDLU was supplied with, is that the program could answer questions about what was possible in the world and what was not. For instance, SHRDLU would deduce that blocks could be stacked by looking for examples, but would realize that triangles couldn't be stacked, after having tried it. The "world" contained basic physics to make blocks fall over, independent of the language parser. Finally, SHRDLU could also remember names given to objects, or arrangements of them. For instance one could say "a steeple is a small triangle on top of a tall rectangle"; SHRDLU could then answer questions about steeples in the blocks world, and build new ones.
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Here is a famous demonstration of SHRDLU:
Consequences
SHRDLU was considered a tremendously successful demonstration of artificial intelligence. This led other AI researchers to excessive optimism which was soon lost when later systems attempted to deal with situations with a more realistic level of ambiguity and complexity. Subsequent efforts of the SHRDLU type, such as Cyc, have tended to focus on providing the program with considerably more information from which it can draw conclusions. Though not intentionally developed as such, SHRDLU is considered the first known formal example of interactive fiction, as the user interacts with simple commands to move objects around a virtual environment, though lacking the distinct story-telling normally present in the interactive fiction genre. The 1976-1977 game Colossal Cave Adventure is broadly considered to be the first true work of interactive fiction.
